Toll the Hounds

Spite nodded.’Precisely.’



‘Well, we hardly have the leisure of living for millennia, Spite-’



‘You clearly weren’t listening,’ she cut in. ‘Leisure is not a relevant notion. Consider the weariness that often afflicts your kind, late in their lives. Then multiply that countless times. This is the burden of being long-lived.’



‘A moment, then, while I weep for you,’ Cutter said.



‘Such ingratitude! Very well, young man, please do leave us now, and if this be the last I see of you then I will indeed know the reward of leisurely comportment!’



Cutter rubbed at his face and seemed but moments from pulling at his own hair. He drew a deep breath, slowly released it. ‘I’ll wait,’ he muttered.



‘Really?’ Spite’s thin, perfect brows rose. ‘Then perhaps an apology is forthcoming?’



‘Sorry,’ Cutter said in a mumble. ‘It’s just that, with what I fear is about to happen to my city, then wasting time-any time at all-well, it’s not easy.’ He shrugged.



‘Apologies with caveats are worthless, you know,’ Spite said, rising. ‘Is it dusk yet? Can’t you all crawl off to your bunks for a time? Or wander the hold or something? For all that rude Cutter frets over things he cannot control, I myself sense the presence of… personages, residing in Darujhistan, of a nature to alarm even me. Accordingly, I must think for a time… preferably alone.’



Scillara rose. ‘Let’s go, Cutter,’ she said, taking his arm.



Trailed by Chaur, Barathol folloed the Trell warrior down into tbe bold. There were no berths aboard large enough ro accommodate Mappo, so he had fashioned an abode of sorts amidst bales of supplies. Barathol saw that the Trell had already packed his kit, hammock, armour and weapons all stuffed into a lone sack knotted at the month by a rawhide cord, and now he sat on a crate, glancing up to regard the blacksmith.



‘Yon wish to speak of something, Barathol?’



‘Spite tells me that the Trell were driven from this continent long ago.’



‘My people have been assailed for thousands of years.’ He shrugged his massive shoulders. ‘Perhaps we are so ugly to others that our very existence is unaccept-able.’



‘You have a long journey ahead,’ Barathol said. ‘My thought is-’



But Mappo raised a hand. ‘No, my friend. I must do this alone.’



‘To cross an entire continent, in the face of hostility-possibly on all sides-Mappo, someone must guard your back.’



The Trell’s dark, deep-set eyes studied him for a half-dozen heartbeats. ‘Barathol Mekhar, we have come to know each other well on this journey. I could not imagine anyone better to guard my back than you.’ He shook his head. ‘I do not intend to cross the continent. There are… other paths. Perhaps indeed more perilous, but I assure you I am not easy to kill. The failure was mine and to make it right, well, the responsibility is mine and mine alone. I will not-1 cannot-accept that others risk their lives on my behalf. Not you, friend. Not blessed Chaur. Please, leave me to this.’



Barathol sighed. ‘You force upon me an even more terrible choice, then.’



‘Oh?’



A wry grin. ‘Aye. What to do with my life.’



Mappo grunted a laugh. ‘I would not call that terrible, at least from my own point of view.’



‘I understand what it is to be driven,’ Barathol said. ‘I think that is all that I understand. Back in Seven Cities, well, I’d almost convinced myself that what I’d found was all I needed, but I was lying to myself. Some people, I now believe, cannot just… retire. It feels too much like surrender.’



‘You were a blacksmith-’



‘By default. I was a soldier, Mappo. A Red Blade.’



‘Even so, to work iron is a worthy profession. Perhaps you were a soldier, once, but to set down your weapons and find another profession is not surrender. Yet if it feels so to you, well, this city is no doubt crowded with estates, many of which would welcome a guard of your experience. And there will be merchants, operating caravans. Indeed, the city must have its own garrison-no warrior ever fears unemployment, for their skills are ever in demand.’



‘A sad admission, Mappo.’



The Trell shrugged again. ‘I would think, now, Barathol, that if anyone needs his back guarded, it is Cutter.’



Barathol sighed in frustration. ‘He says little of what he plans to do. In any case, this is his city. He will find those who know enough to protect him. Besides, I must admit, having seen Cutter practise with those knives of his, well, perhaps it is Darujhistan that must fear his return.’